Coca-Cola's "Mở lon Việt Nam": better safe than sorry.

Overview

Being recognized by 94% of the world’s population just for its red-and-white logo, Coca-Cola is definitely one of the most iconic beverage brands ever (Bhasin, 2011). The Coca-Cola company has expanded to more than 200 countries worldwide since its first appearance in Atlanta (1886), with nearly 1,200 products launched among which Coca-Cola soft drink, also known as Coke, is consumed most addictively. With all the enormous figures of its success, Coca-Cola officially operated in the prospective market of Vietnam in 1994 and has boosted Vietnam’s economy since then. Despite the tastiness of the drink itself, a large number of consumers see Coca-Cola as a symbol of their childhood memories that resembles happiness and intimacy, which are always highlighted in every advertisement of the brand.

Recently, Coca-Cola Vietnam released a new advertising campaign with the slogan “Mở lon Việt Nam, cơ hội trúng vàng mỗi ngày". The campaign aims at spreading Coca-Cola’s newest promotion by encouraging its consumers to collect Coca-Cola cans and win valuable prizes everyday. Looking at the campaign’s purpose, this is nothing new to the advertising industry as many other companies have had this sort of promotion. However, Coca-Cola took a risk at its slogan to make the campaign stand out and received thousands of responses from Vietnamese netizens, and unfortunately, from the authority. From the perspective of a young advertising practitioner, I do not consider this as a positive success of Coca-Cola Vietnam.

Don't mess with the authorities!

A semi-covered billboard at CMT8-NTMK crossroad (Ho Chi Minh city)

The campaign and its slogan were not very popular until the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued an official dispatch to rectify the unclear advertising message of Coca-Cola. Two billboards in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city were immediately removed, making this incident controversial shortly thereafter. On social media platforms, it is obvious that debates have been going on around this topic for the last few days of June, considering whether the authority is getting too unreasonably sensitive or Coca-Cola is doing this on purpose to increase the ‘share of voice’. None of the two sides is completely right, but this is not a wise movement of Coca-Cola. Below are some elements that make this campaign ineffective in my opinion.

Vietnam’s fine customs is a big deal.

The four-word slogan captures the audience’s attention by the term “lon Việt Nam", which naturally means “Vietnam's can" or “Vietnamese can" in English. Many netizens debate on the equivocation of the word “lon” when intonation is added, twisting it into a taboo definition of the word. A previous campaign “In tên lên lon" (“Print name on the can") of Coca-Cola once monitored a somewhat negative reaction about the term “lon". However, I think only by looking at this linguistic element, it is not fair and convincing enough to “execute” this slogan of Coca-Cola as obscene because there is nothing wrong with the “can" itself but the imagination.

On the other hand, in this campaign, the problem once again arose when the so-called “sensitive word” is deliberately put in front of the country's name. According to Ms. Huong Ninh, Director, Department of Cultural Affairs, the whole sentence does not meet the requirement of public decency or guarantee clear information of advertising content with the product’s features (as cited in Nguyen, 2019). This is strongly based on the inappropriate usage of a general noun, “lon” (“can”) next to the sacred name of our nation, “Vietnam”. Culture and nation pride are extremely vulnerable when it comes to any widespread communication activities, especially for a multicultural company like Coca-Cola. Having been in Vietnam for nearly 24 years, how come Coca-Cola still uses the country’s name so freely? The authority struggles to explain persuasive reasons why this campaign is violating the provisions of Clause 3, Article 8 and Clause 1, Article 19 of the Advertising Law, since there is no line saying advertisers cannot put “Vietnam” in the slogan with a general noun. Nonetheless, it is crucial for big companies like Coca-Cola to deeply understand the Vietnamese culture which highly appreciates national fine customs.

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's official dispatch to rectify the unclear advertising message of Coca-Cola

Is this a wise way to get attention?

Looking at the short term of this crisis, I have to admit that this does not tremendously affect Coca-Cola’s sales or global reputation. Additionally, mr. Vu Le, CEO of Blue C Advertising also pointed out that even if Coca-Cola utilised this chance to raise the controversy, it was gaining a lot of attention (as cited in Nguyen, 2019). Still, I would consider this strategy of Coca-Cola as risky and ineffective. Coca-Cola is definitely not a small brand which has just set foot in the F&B industry and is looking for any kind of attention, either positive or negative. Therefore, risk-playing in this situation is unnecessary, in my opinion. As can be seen, Vietnamese netizens tend to be very aggressive on the internet and Coca-Cola is dealing with a “locally angry crowd”! Although the effectiveness cannot be measured by sales in this case, we can still see that Coca-Cola is losing brand love from a group of domestic consumers who criticize the company for underestimating our nation.

Lessons learned

Coca-Cola is lucky enough to have a chance to change its slogan and not be accused of any serious crime. It boils down to the conclusion that big brands who already earn a significant market should not risk their reputation by any means. Next time if Coca-Cola wants to do any promotions, I suggest they stick with the simple and fun image of happiness like they have always been doing. Vietnamese is a diverse and complex language, so there are unlimited ways to play with the words safely so as not to feel sorry later.

References:

Bhasin, K. (2011), Business Insider, 15 facts about Coca-Cola that will blow your mind, available at <https://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-coca-cola-2011-6>

Nguyen, T. (2019), Thanh Niên, “Mở lon Việt Nam” trái thuần phong mỹ tục ra sao?, available at https://thanhnien.vn/van-hoa/mo-lon-viet-nam-trai-thuan-phong-my-tuc-ra-sao-1098291.html